


go gentle into that good night

by iiwhatislifeii



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Gen, its basically tony in the afterlife, nat and higher beings are done with him lol, this is my love note/ode to the mcu
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-30
Updated: 2019-07-30
Packaged: 2020-07-27 04:04:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20039650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iiwhatislifeii/pseuds/iiwhatislifeii
Summary: In which Tony is a stubborn idiot who is indecisive and breaks the afterlife when he decides that finally resting and taking a self-care day after death is overrated.(Or... An ode & love note to the end of an era and to our beloved heroes: Anthony Stark and one Natasha Romanoff whom deserve to rest.)





	go gentle into that good night

**Author's Note:**

> And you, 
> 
> my father, 
> 
> there on the sad height, 
> 
> Curse, 
> 
> bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray. 
> 
> Do not go gentle into that good night.
> 
> Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

He feels light. Floating. His thoughts are foggy, distant. But there’s something in the back of his head…. Something he has to do. It won’t go away. What it is it, what is it,  _ what is it- _

_ Daddy! _

_ But will you be able to rest? _

_ You did it, sir- _

_ We’re gonna be okay…. _

No. No, no, no. This isn’t right. This is wrong. The lightness is fading, his chest feels heavy. Hook, line, and sinker. To the bottom. The bottom of a lake? A lake? Why a lake… 

His thoughts are garbled, tangled. God, what is going on? Everything is wrong.  _ Why is everything wrong? _

_ Mr. Stark- _

_ You can rest now. _

_ Mommy sent me to save you. _

_ I’m sorry, Tony. _

The voices make him shake and shiver so he remembers night terrors. Deja vu of staggered breaths and skipping heart beats. Dreading it, running from it. Waking up to the echoes of metal against metal; a hammer- wait _ ,  _ a silver arm, no- a shield _ , a gauntlet  _ against a heart-

_ I love you 3000. _

He gasps awake on the ground and his visions burns like stars and nebulas. Orange sky. 

He’s on his feet in a matter of seconds? Minutes? His mind is splitting- why can’t he tell time anymore? 

He looks forward. Orange. It’s as far as the eye can see. A deep, soul searching orange. Small blotches of lighter, softer shades warp and fold over each other like tides in an ocean. It’s like watching the sunset. He wonders if he’s actually standing in the sky. It looks beautiful… 

But it feels utterly and completely wrong. He knows it’s not because he’s in a strange new place but… a feeling. An instinctual, guttural one. He knows: he’s not supposed to be here.

He takes a step forward and half expects to sink into the sunset clouds but to his surprise, the ground ripples. Like water. He kneels down to brush his hands through it but his fingers come out dry.

“ _ Ooookay _ . That does  _ not  _ obey the laws of physics. But I guess it does end the ‘is water wet’ debate-“

His eyes wander and his breath catches. There. In the distance. That shouldn’t be here- it- that-

Yet in front of him, a dark blue flower print tent stands. The opening flaps and flutters in a breeze he can’t even feel. A blue and golden Iron mask rests innocently on a stool next to a fluffy beaver plush.

“ _ What the fu _ -“

“ **Tony** .”

He whips around and his heart stops for a few seconds. (Minutes? Hours? God, what is time now?)

Everything floods back into his head, like a tidal wave. His head splits and he’s drowning, he’s drowning, and it’s just  _ too much- _

_ Memories of juice pops and changing diapers. Building cribs because heaven knows there’s no way he’s putting his own kid in anything made by anyone other than himself. Crayoned drawings of Iron Man taped to the fridge. She looks exactly how he left her on the porch before heading to the Compound: _

Morgan.

Morgan, Morgan,  _ Morgan.  _ How could he forget? 

He breathes for a sliver of a second before he is bombarded by another batch of moments:  _ late night snacks in the lab after hours pouring over chemistry homework and suit updates. Science fairs. Falling asleep after weeks upon weeks of reels of upbeat voicemails. And a picture frame. Smiling, happy, alive. _

Peter. 

His heart clenches painfully. He remembers now. 

_ Mirages of falling asleep in the backseat and a steady presence standing near to his side during press conferences. Being anchored in crowds of voices and camera flashes. Boxing matches. Hospital rooms. Cheeseburgers. _

Happy.

_ There’s blurry images of all nighters at MIT. Inside jokes. A fond exasperation. Strong hands rubbing circles into his back on empty bottle ridden bathroom floors. Lectures. A uniform. Badges. Wheelchairs that turn into crutches then braces. Platypus. Honey Bear.  _

Rhodey. 

_ And her. Small hands. An unrelenting glare. Sharp comebacks and witty banter. Freckles like constellations. A warm presence on his cheek and a trembling smile. Melodic, whispered words drifting him off into a quiet, gentle, sleep. And wisps of orange strands fluttering against the grey monochrome of a battlefield, a guiding flame in the darkness. Finality. Acceptance. Love. _

Pepper. 

And Tony. He is Tony. He is Iron Man. And he remembers. He remembers it all.

Tony is on his knees gasping and the figure he almost forgets is in front of him steps into his vision. 

She looks like her. But… The pink of her flamingo sweater is faded, her wispy brown hair is a few centimeters too long, and her eyes. Her eyes burn like supernovas- collapsing and expanding. Like star clusters and galaxies. They burn orange.

“...Morgan?”

“ **Tony.” **

The voice that leaves Not-Morgan’s mouth is odd. It echoes even though there are no walls and just the mass orange emptiness. The way his first name falls out off her mouth… it feels foreign on her tongue. It’s unnatural. Tony shivers.

“Who… who are you?” His voice trembles. “What is this place?”

A cold feeling runs down his spine.

“Am…” Tony pauses. “Am I dead?”

Not-Morgan, even though her eyes do not show their shared history, they begin to soften. “ **In a way…** ” 

Dread. He wants to run. Run back home. To Morgan. To Pepper. To Peter. To Rhodey. To Happy.

“ **I’m…” ** Not-Morgan looks thoughtfully towards the orange sky. ** “...a keeper, of sorts.” **

Tony laughs a little nervously. “Ha. I was a little nervous that we’re gonna say ‘God’ for a second.”

Not-Morgan rolls her eyes. The action catches Tony off guard. Then, she spins deftly on her heels to gesture to the scenery.  **“I guide lost travelers, wanderers, vagabonds through here to the Beyond. I take the form of whom you’d be most comfortable with. Your mind went to this… child first?” **

Not-Morgan looks down at herself as if she’s never seen a four year old girl before.

“My daughter.” Tony supplies. Not-Morgan nods like she suspected as much.

** “As for where…” ** She skips around him to stand in front of Morgan’s tent as she continues, “ **This is the pathway all souls walk before they go Beyond.”**

“Beyond? Like ‘beyond’ or we talking like- capital B, mystical and mysterious ‘Beyond’?” Tony is blubbering trying to wrap his head around all of this. And mostly Not-Morgan seeing his not-daughter act like he’s just some random stranger off the streets she has to deal with this unsettles him. God, this is so, so weird. 

“So.” Tony manages to sound semi-intelligent despite having a miny-existential-end-of-life crisis. “Like… heaven?”

“ **Heaven. Elysium. Yomi. The Afterlife.” ** Not-Morgan shrugs as she sways in the nonexistent breeze. “ **Call it what you will. This is where all light weighted souls go before you Choose.”**

“Light weighted? Choose?” 

Not-Morgan sighs. Her eyebrows scrunch and her lip pouts in frustration. She almost looks like his own daughter for a second. After all, Tony has the same expression when he can’t solve a problem or comes into contact with stupid people. 

Tony’s nose scrunches. Immortal, all knowing, all powerful beings acting human are weird. Not-God being sassy is weird. Ack. What is his life even anymore?

“**To go Beyond, to Rebirth, or to Remain.** **Most souls Choose to go to Beyond.” **

She leans down to pick up Pepper’s helmet. “ **As for light weighted… well, saving the entirety of your current universe is quite the light weighted deed.”**

She then frowns. “ **However, there are instances where funny beings like you come along...” **

Tony’s lips twitch. 

Not-Morgan smirks at him mischievously. Though, in a split second it drops and she turns to look him dead in the eyes. Serious. Her gaze is unsettling. “ **Caught between worlds… they just can’t seem to make up their minds.”**

Tony’s mouth opens to retort but nothing comes out. Her eyes don’t let him go. A thick silence settles between them.

“Well, little miss, you’re kind of creepy, like,  _ The Conjuring _ creepy with your whole ‘I am the ferrygirl of the underworld- abandon all hope ye who enter here’ getup-“ Tony started. “So, since I’m freaking the eff out right now, I’m just gonna take my chances getting out of here on my own. No offence.”

That answer was obviously very, very wrong as in a split second a great wind swept Tony onto his back and sounds louder than thunder split his skull.

“ **Do not stall, Stark! You must Choose or you will be cursed to Remain and roam the Empty forever!”**

Tony felt as if the weight of infinite lifetimes settled on his chest as she boomed. As he stared at her. He could see her ‘Not-Morgan’ form flicker in and out of existence. A massive shadowy mass darker than the blackest night and one brighter than any star he ever passed in space warped and struggled for dominance of the figure. An amalgamation of life and death, love and fury, light and darkness twist and pull at each other in a way that makes his flesh crawl. The sheer presence of this being pulls something deep in his chest towards it. Tony’s vision goes warped and he can feel himself being lost, pulled into two different places… but eventually, the light and darkness melt back into the small frame of Not-Morgan.

The ordeal leaves Tony reeling. His breath is torn and ragged with exertion. The aftermath is worse than any post-panic attack he ever had. 

“ _ What in the actual fuck was that? _ ”

“ **You are upsetting the Balance, Tony Stark.” **

Not-Morgan’s face gives away her real feelings, contrasting her calm tone as she goes wide eyed and trembling. She seems as freaked out as he is- if that’s even possible for a mysterious, all powerful being who walks the realm between life and death and whom he is 78% sure are the vessels of Life and Death co-inhabiting the body of his four year old not-daughter, Morgan.

...And that was the weirdest sentence he’s ever thought before. God, seriously, what is his life anymore?

“Dude, you’ve got some wacky split personality thing going on there.”

Not-Morgan hums a little distractedly. Her fists are pale and clenched. Tony realizes she’s not trembling with emotion, but flickering. She seems laser focused as she slips between a solid form a more cloud like one. Every so often the dark figure and the blinding star glitch into her too.

“ **We are not meant to be apart, Tony Stark. Mortal ideas of life and death are trifles. We just are. We just exist. We have not been apart since the beginning.”**

Tony thinks that it’s more “The Beginning” than “beginning”. He feels quite small in comparison to this being at the realization.

“ **We do not plan on the End happening anytime soon. Choose now.”**

Tony looks away from Not-Morgan and towards his surroundings. The orange vastness doesn’t seem too bad- it actually has a sort of beautiful stillness to it… but Tony feels his mind getting foggier and time getting harder and harder to tell the longer he stays. He feels it deep in his bones that he could lose himself if he were to remain here.

Not-Morgan winces again and the light/dark figure glitches into her being again.

“ **The Balance is shifting. You must make a choice.”**

Tony thinks to living again. He might see Morgan and Peter again… but something instinctual tells him he wouldn’t recognize them if he did. This path… this path is for second chances. For lives unfulfilled. Cut too short. Does he want to walk that way?

“ **Stark! It is time.”**

Tony is jolted of his thoughts. He knows what the best decision is, the most logical one, but he can’t bring himself to say it- there’s something he still can’t place. Something he can’t let go. 

Yet something shifts and Not-Morgan stops flickering. 

“ **Oh. ** ** _Oh. _ ** **That’s what is was?” **

**“** What? What are you talking about?”

**“The people of Earth call you a genius yet you still can’t figure out the simplest things.” ** Not-Morgan looks steadier than he remembered. More life like. More like the real Morgan. Her whole posture is completely different. More sure, more confident. The sudden shift is jarring.

“ **Tch. Humans. You overcomplicate things that do not need overcomplicating. I haven’t been so Unbalanced since that Winchester.” **

Not-Morgan rolls her shoulders and folds her hands as she stretches out her fingers. Like she’s getting ready to do something. The supernovas in her eyes are swirling and burning brighter than they were before. There’s a sinking feeling in Tony’s stomach.

**“** Wait, what? What’s going on? I still haven’t-“

**“Yes, yes, yes, you do not know it yet, but your heart has decided.”**

She waves Tony’s inquiries off impatiently

**“Now, for the love of all of existence-”**

Not-Morgan’s expression is annoyed and exasperated as she snaps her fingers.

**“Leave my realm!”**

A wave of light and dark envelop him and as soon as it washes over him, he feels nothingness. 

Then-

“Hey, tin can.”

The voice has the corners of his mouth twitching in seconds. A chuckled reply slips out of his mouth before he pivots around and catches fiery red hair in his peripheral.

“Natashalie.”

She’s as beautiful as the day they first met. She wears no tactical gear. Just civilian garb. Her shoulders aren’t heavy with sleep or responsibility, her hair lacks the silver stress strands he knows were there when they were alive, no wrinkles, no scattered scars... Her eyes are bright, glinting mischievously with mirth. Happiness. 

Tony smiles. It suits her. She deserves it.

“Guardians at the gate said you caused some ruckus out there. What’s up with that, old man?”

Tony shrugs nonchalantly.

“Eh. Pissed off Life and Death. Said the universe might spontaneously combust if I don’t haul ass to Heaven. Something like that.”

Nat just blinks. Her face is unreadable as ever. Then she snorts.

“Seriously?” She’s gone into a laughing fit and Tony can’t remember when he saw her like this. Ever.

Once she regains her breathe and wiped tears from the corners of her eyes she gasps, “God, only you, Tony. Only you…”

“Well, what can I say? I’m a stubborn ass.”

Nat gestures over her shoulders. “Walk with me?”

Tony looks out at the new setting and is met with the most beautiful scene he’s ever seen. The sun is high and bright in the sky and a breeze almost caressing his hair. Warm sand under what he now realizes are his bare feet. The waves lapping at the shore and seagulls above him aren’t too loud or quite- it almost sounds like a song. Like a perfectly written orchestra. Everything was… perfect. This was the beach of beaches. 

“Tony?”

Tony shakes his head out of the jaw dropping wonder he had been marveling in. He jogs to catch up with Nat who’s been walking down a sandy hill to the water. 

When he meets her strides he says, “You know what would be nice right about now?”

She doesn’t turn to face him but he can practically hear the amused smirk and the raised eyebrow goading him on to continue.

“An all-American cheeseburger.”

A snort.

“Eccentric as ever, old man. But I think I’d rather have a peanut butter jelly sandwich.” 

Nat chuckles, Tony also finds himself laughing along. When they finally reach the water, Nat sits down. He follows her suit. He looks over to see her eyes close and a relaxed look on her face. Her expression is more open than he’s ever seen. Something about the sun on her face, her smile, her happiness- it unsettles him so he looks to the ocean tides lapping at their feet. Tony looks to the horizon, and finds the sun, never getting lower than the ocean line. Cool breezes tousle his locks and realizes he hasn’t felt the familiar tightness where the arc used to be or the creak of his older, worn out knees. There’s just… no pain. He’s not even sweating out in this sun. He’s just warm. Perfectly warm. The tide at his feet is perfect too. Everything is perfect- not too perfect that it’s robotically unsettling, but unsettling in the sense that...

It’s peaceful. And Tony can’t remember the last time he’s ever felt that way.

A hand lightly touches his shoulder. He looks to his left and Nat’s eyes are soft and understanding. God, she’s always been so damn good at reading people. And as much as she tries to hide her emotions he can always tell when he looks in her eyes. It’s always the eyes. “It’s gonna be okay, you know.” 

Her hand trails from his shoulder and tangles in his fingers. She squeezes.

“You’re not… abandoning them.” Nat’s words hit straight home and he winces. She continues. “If you let go.”

Tony’s eyes stare into the sand despondently. He can’t face it. He can’t. But Nat softly takes his face into her hands and makes him look in her eyes.

“You’ve done them good, Tony. You’ve done good.” 

Tony looks away to the ocean and takes in the scene. His eyes flutter shut. He breathes in deeply and wishes as hard as he can. There are still things to be done, dreams to fulfill, and words to be said. He wants to be there to do it with them. But he gathers all those hopes, those visions of the future, the ones that are bursting in his chest, waiting to be done… and he gives them away. To Morgan, to Peter. To Pepper. To Rhodey and Happy. He’s gonna trust them with it. He knows, somewhere drumming away under his rib cage that they’ll do him good. They’ll learn to take care of each other. 

There’s a brief memory of a tower donned with a bright, glorious A. Ceiling vents and labs. Punching bags and pop tarts. It’s a little bitter and a little broken, but mostly good. He hangs onto it for a little while. A corner of his mouth twitches because, well, he knows he can count on that family to take care of them too. His first glimpse of what love even was, all because of his first family. 

His story is done. 

He exhales. 

He lets go.

He hopes it reaches them. Will it ever? Do they know? Nat looks at him expectantly.

“So? What are you gonna choose?”

It’s gonna be okay.  _ They’re _ gonna be okay.  _ He’s _ gonna be okay.

Tony squeezes Nat’s fingers, she squeezes back.

And so Tony rests.

  
  


_ Fin. _

  
  
  
  
  


Epilogue:

“You made up with Stevey didn’t you?”

“Well….”

“Tony, I swear to God-“

“I did! Nat! Chillax. I don’t want to find out if I’ll still feel the pain of one of your headlocks in this place.”

“Tch. You’re still a cheeky dumbass, Tones.”

“Ouch. Love ya too, Red.”

“...Tch. It’s stupid, but me too, Tony. Me too.”

**Author's Note:**

> fUCK, tony deserved better. nat deserved better. i miss the days where there were fics of superfamily living in the tower and air vent clint and thor getting addicted to pop tarts and watching movies on the couch creaking with the weight of a crap ton of dumb superheroes. damn guys, it hurts my heart to think of this last phase. i miss when they were a family. and honestly? as this era ends, that’s how i’ll remember them. that’s how they’ll stay in my mind. a big family of dumb superheroes.
> 
> god this fic was really just me creating a story to heal and learn to let go of this era. and you know what? i think it kinda did. i’m gonna miss them, not gonna lie. but i’m happy. satisfied. call this a love note, an ode to our heroes. may they live long and happily in the hearts and minds of humanity. 
> 
> i hope you took a little healing away from this too. thanks for reading.


End file.
